OSN SHORT STORY: THE PHOTO FINISH

By Hilde Kate Lysiak

Lacy waits and waits as a voice talks on and on about photo shopping. As she waits for the bell to ring, she thinks back to how excited she was when she signed up for this photography class. She had signed up thinking that they would do less photo shopping and more picture taking. She was very nervous and photography always helped.

Something about losing herself in capturing the image of something else was calming to her. But here she was, in this disappointment of a class, being assigned an essay that took no real creativity. She hated the class and she just wanted to get out of school and finish the essay. Finally the bell rang.

Two hours later:

She had just checked off a picture on her list. She had one more to do. It was to get a picture of a wild animal. She looked around and didn’t see any. She could spend an hour finding a animal she thought, or she could take a picture of her pet. So she got her pet bunny and took the collar off so it looked like a wild animal. She took the picture. Then the bunny leaped away.

Lacy was shattered. She loved her bunny. She had it for 10 years, ever since her cat died.

She and the bunny had been through so much together.

She chased the bunny 10 streets before it leaped into the woods. She ran into the woods, too, but it was too late. The bunny was nowhere to be seen.

She walked further into the woods. Suddenly it became dark. She knew she could never find her way home– not in the night, at least. So she sat down. I’ll just wait here, she thought, until morning.

She looked around. It looked like the woods never ended. Suddenly she didn’t feel like she could wait. She needed to get home. But she didn’t know which way to go. So she just started running in a random direction`. She knew she would be in big trouble if she wasn’t back in time for school and she had no time to waste on wondering which direction it was.

She ran as fast as she could. She started to wonder about her bunny, then her photo class. Suddenly she tripped on a tree root and fell face first into the ground, scraping her whole face. She lifted her stomach off the ground but stopped in a crawl-like position. Then she saw something. Something beautiful in her eyes. It was her street. She was in the middle of her street.

It was a boring street but it was the place she called home, so she loved it. Each house looked exactly the same. Tall brick with white doors. The street was a one way street so no one ever really drove on it.

She needed to get home. Fast. She stood up. She started walking then she realized she wasn’t getting anywhere, as if she were on a treadmill. Then she started to notice that this didn’t look like her street. All the houses looked the same, but there were a lot of people she didn’t know just standing still on the street. Lacy didn’t know why, but something about what she was seeing reminded her of her photography class.

While she was trying to figure out what it was that reminded her of class, she almost missed something running right at her. Something small and soft and…her bunny! It finally seemed like things were looking up. She bent to grab her bunny, but was startled when after she picked it up all she saw in her hand was a photo.

3 comments on “OSN SHORT STORY: THE PHOTO FINISH”

Wow Hilde !! You could add so much more to this story: Like maybe she ran into a time-warp in the woods and was sent to a different time – maybe before her house was built or after it was torn down and new houses were built or maybe a different place. Or maybe she could find herself living in one of her pictures that she had taken. Either scene would be fun to continue your story. I liked it as it is also. Great job !! ❤ :-o)